Playing the Fool
by Ganurath
Summary: Jar-Jar Binks had a more interesting life than was readily apparent. This One-Shot explains the role of a certain Sith Gungan in the fall of the Jedi, despite the best efforts of his idiot apprentice to "help."


I do not own Star Wars, which is the property of Disney. I heard talk of Disney letting Lucas keep Jar-Jar, but as I am neither I don't own Jar-Jar. This story won't match up with EU canon, but I don't intend for it to have anything that would conflict with the films themselves.

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The Master had taken the Gungan as a child, intent on raising him as a Sith without the influences of his native culture. After all, the Nubians secured the Senate seat for humanity alone, so the Jedi wouldn't miss a Gungan, no matter how strong in the Force he was. Still, the boy wasn't so young that he hadn't been ingrained with the frustrating speech patterns of his people, or a deep sense of racial loyalty. The hatred of humanity might prove useful… If the Master could exempt herself from it, it would prove an effective way to refine his power.

The Gungan proved to be of the fatter breed, but it mattered little beyond his lamenting the inability to use the Ataru form as he wished. He was adept at the Makashi form, though, enough that the Master was willing to forgive his specialization in studying the power of the Force to manipulate living tissue. Such would not be the weapon to take revenge against the Jedi, but with dark legions and clashing lightsabers. What good could a few healing tricks do?

As the Master learned, his ability to revitalize himself was more than enough to compensate for his obesity when the Gungan decided to challenge her. Hindsight would have told her that mocking his people's failure to finish off the Nubians after destroying their royal line was a mistake, had she survived the battle. Satisfied with his success, the Gungan began plotting how he could bring ruin to the Nubians and the Jedi in the same stroke.

The Gungan had, over the years, learned to mask his presence and influence in the Force, one of the first lessons his late Master had given him. In that much, he would teach his Apprentice as he had been taught, an ambitious Nubian with a distinct lack of intelligence. He would not be the Gungan's last student, but hopefully he would be the most useful. The Apprentice was taught in his spare time, so that his public face as a politician could be maintained. In the meantime, the Gungan sought out the cloners of Kamino, supposedly making an army in the name of the Jedi.

The plan was simple enough, in concept: Make it look like the Jedi were planning a hostile takeover of Coruscant, then have the army "discovered" by a routine inspection instigated by the Apprentice. It did not harm the Nubians at that stage, but the ignorance of his Apprentice wasn't intended to be a danger to him. The Gungan should have realized that, once his apparent role in the plot had ended, the Apprentice would lash out at him. Poison gas and lightning felled him, but did not slay him, and the Apprentice saw fit to gloat over the Gungan's body. He revealed a new, superior plan, one that was doomed to fail if the Gungan did not take action.

Left for dead, the Gungan performed his first great feat of the Sith life arts, cannibalizing his dead tissue to repair and regrow his old self. He was a lanky creature by the time he was done, and the Apprentice had stolen the lightsaber of the Master, but his own had remained concealed. Still, the Gungan had much work to do, and little time to do it. His first step, regrettably, would be to create a plausible explanation for why a Gungan civilian would walk the surface of Naboo.

Creating a false identity among his people was easy enough, for they did not keep records as meticulously as the humans. It was easy to sneak into the Boss's hangar and highjack his favored vehicle, with the Force being used to direct attention away from him, and surviving the crash was simply a matter of timing. It was his fortune that he was able to attend his trail in person, as knowledge of the mind's anatomy had eliminated the need to gesture when influencing decisions. The Gungan was exiled, as he had wished.

Using what funds he had that his Apprentice never knew of, the Gungan made a quick trip to Tatooine. His fool Apprentice was depending upon the Force itself to provide a child of prophecy for him to corrupt, forgetting that Sith were agents of the Force's will. Acquiring the cooperation of the Toydarian was an exercise in frustration, but he had proven easy to intimidate. He would hold the Nubian ship part for him, and receive an advance, in exchange for permitting an experiment. Once his cooperation was secured, the Gungan impregnated the Slave with the raw energy of the Force, his second great feat of the Sith life arts. Once her mind was scoured of the memory, he was off to return to Naboo.

The hardest part of the plan, in hindsight, was making sure that he could intercept the Jedi, but he managed it easily enough. It was his good fortune that the Jedi Master was in tune with the living Force, as it made it easier to manipulate his sensibilities, to play to his compassion. As much as they pretended otherwise, the majority of the Jedi were indoctrinated sociopaths. The Gungan had feared he would need to manipulate the Boss in the presence of the Jedi, but the Jedi Master had been happy to do the work for him.

The next step was escaping the blockade. It was dangerous, but once their safety was secured, the Gungan set about sabotaging the ship part, making it look like it had been damaged in the battle before slipping in a credit chip where the Toydarian could find it later. A corpse would raise questions, but silence was easy to buy when his enemies wouldn't think to ask. As the Gungan had calculated, the only world the Nubian ship could escape to was Tatooine.

The Gungan didn't need to use the Force to ingratiate himself to the Boy, which proved useful in the streets. He sensed a bond of conflict between the Boy and the Racer, and provoking the latter to strike at him was as simple as catapulting a piece of meat to splatter his soup. The Boy was happy to help a new friend against an old enemy, and from there offered to play the host. The Jedi Master's meddlesome nature, especially in the absence of the Jedi Apprentice's tempering influence, was proving most useful.

The Boy had saved him the trouble of "finding" the means to liberate him in the form of a homemade pod racer. The Gungan had to make some subtle adjustments, but his acting the fool provided an opportunity to garner sympathy with the Girl. How the Jedi failed to realize that she was, in truth, the current Nubian Queen was beyond him, but he did not allow himself to relax his guard. The Jedi Apprentice was of the indoctrinated like the others, and would have better mental vigilance than the Jedi Master. Revenge was too close for the Gungan to become sloppy from overconfidence, not again.

The Toydarian had not been prepared for the second wager, but it only took a glare from the Gungan for him to give the deal a chance, or so he claimed. The Gungan had every reason to suspect that the chance die was weighted. After all, why not flip a coin if there were only two options? Still, the Jedi Master was better at changing the odds in his favor than the Toydarian, and both wagers were soon secured.

The race, unfortunately, could not be rigged, but even under the watchful attention of the Jedi Master subtle manipulations could be made. A pod sabotaged at distance, a droid compelled to walk through an air stream, and guards convinced to abandon their duty of removing hostile natives all helped to eliminate competitors. Elevating the Racer's emotions so as to cloud his judgment had proven enough to compensate for the sabotage to the Boy's pod, and the race was won.

As the Jedi Master went to recruit the Boy, the Gungan oversaw the exchange of ship parts. The Toydarian's sour mood was lessoned when he saw the remainder of his payment, and when none were in earshot his continued silence was affirmed. The only complication in parting was the Zabrak, but stripping him of the ability of hide his presence ensured that the Jedi Master could save the Boy.

Coruscant was worrisome, but the Apprentice failed to recognize the Gungan. The Jedi were so open with their presence in the Force, the Apprentice hadn't seemed to consider that one might hide his presence from a Sith. The Apprentice, to his credit, played his intended part in the plan rather well, fueling the Girl's anger at the Chancellor enough for her to invoke a vote of no confidence. The Jedi Master played the perfect pawn, helping the Boy toward training in the Force. All who saw the Gungan assumed his joy was at being able to return home.

The foolish humans didn't question that the Gungan, who had spent so long playing the clown, came from a warrior culture. He lead the Nubians to the Gungans, and the Girl proved to be every bit as savvy as he had expected. He barely needed to manipulate the Boss at all for him to offer the aid of his warriors. Allowing the Gungan, who was seen as an idiot, to become a military commander… That idea was so farfetched, the Gungan actually needed to gesture to impose the idea in the Boss's mind.

The battle had not gone as expected, but the Jedi Apprentice's loyalty to the Jedi Master compensated well enough for the only true setback. Why the Apprentice had sent the Zabrak after the Jedi, he had no idea. Still, a formal peace was made between the Nubians and the Gungan's people, which allowed him to use his brief military career to become active in politics.

Coruscant was slow work, but fruitful. The Gungan's Senate career was unremarkable, but it let him work frequently with the Girl, who became the Nubian Senator. The Boy had unwittingly drawn her in with the Force, providing the Gungan with a catalyst for his fall rather than the originally planned death of the Slave. The Gungan subtly encouraged the romance as the Boy and Girl matured, covering for them as best he was able. The Girl took note of that much of his efforts, which helped establish the appearance of a rapport between them.

The death of the Slave was unexpected, as well as the Boy's awareness of it, but it proved sufficient to accelerate the Boy's corruption. This was fortunate for the plan, as the Apprentice had failed to properly handle the Count, and had let the clone army become revealed too soon. All people would suffer from the civil war, the Gungan's own included, until the Boy's conversion to the Sith could catalyze the masterstroke defeat of the Jedi that the Apprentice had "masterminded."

Years later, the Gungan stood at his balcony, watching over the destruction of the Jedi Temple. A few Padawans were escaping, but they would lack the guile to evade capture and execution for long. One, however, sought shelter with the Gungan Senator. After all, the Padawan was a Nubian, and with the connection the treacherous Boy had to the Girl, the Gungan seemed his best chance of getting home.

The Gungan feigned fear of the danger, but the Padawan assured him that he was skilled with the Makashi form. The Gungan put on the appearance of relief at this, commenting idly that he had heard about that one.

When the red lightsaber ignited, the Gungan confessed that he preferred Ataru.

Revenge, like all good things in life, was worth the wait.


End file.
